On Windows there is an event log that allows you to see everything that happens on your computer, both user and system activities. A new small program from Nirsoft instead provides a new way of seeing all the activities of the computer done by the user with whom you have logged in to Windows.
It is called LastActivityView and is a portable, light and small-sized application that can be downloaded for free from the Nirsoft website.
There is no installation to do, just extract the archive to a folder and then launch the executable file.
The program sorts the activities in chronological order .
Each row of the table displays the time and day of the event and, if available, the description and names of files and paths.
The program does not list all the activities that are done on the computer but only different types of events which include: system startup and shutdown, when there are installations and updates of other programs, when programs are run, when files or folders they are opened, when there are errors and system crashes and when connecting to new networks.
You can sort the data in different ways by clicking on the title of a column to see the list by file name or by path.
The program collects information from various Windows logs including the registry, the Prefetch folder, the event log and the Minidump folder.
The search option can be useful if you are interested in a particular activity, to see if a file has been opened on a certain day of the year.
You can save the entire table in a txt, csv or xml file or as an HTML report.
The program is very basic, easy to use and requires no more in-depth knowledge of how the operating system works.
A more complete and easier to consult program, in which to view the events of the event log in a much clearer interface than that of Windows, is Splunk that can be downloaded for free in a limited version by registering an account.
Once the program is installed, it can be accessed from its integrated web server by typing the address // localhost: 8000 on the browser.
If you wanted something more in-depth, I remember in other articles:
- How to record PC activities to control, monitor and spy on usage
- How to fix Windows errors from the event log.
- Check what programs are doing on Windows
